Crafting Relatable, Sympathetic Characters Your Readers Will Love!

One of the most vital skills in fiction writing is creating compelling, multidimensional characters that readers deeply relate to and care about. They become invested in experiencing the unfolding story through the perspective of complex, realistic characters.

So how do you write characters that feel familiar, draw readers in emotionally, and elicit sympathy? Continue reading below and find out our free techniques.

Ideally you want to hook the readers in the first paragraph. We talked about this is the article: Write a Gripping First Page in Fiction.

The most crucial task of your opening page is establishing an emotional connection between readers and your protagonist. This investment in your main character is what will make readers eager to follow them on the story journey.

How do you immediately make readers care about your protagonist within just the first few paragraphs?

Show Endearing Personality Traits

Reveal your protagonist’s most likable, charming qualities upfront to make them sympathetic.

Do they have:

  • A wry, sarcastic sense of humor?
  • Kindness and compassion for others?
  • A defiant spirit and sense of justice?
  • Courage in the face of adversity?

Let these admirable characteristics shine right away to get readers in their corner.

Reveal Relatable Flaws

While positive traits draw readers in, also showcase flaws that make the protagonist human and relatable. Do they struggle with:

  • Self-doubt or lack of confidence?
  • Keeping emotions bottled up?
  • Holding grudges and anger issues?
  • Nagging regrets or guilt?

Their imperfections will resonate with readers’ own inner turmoil.

Show Hidden Vulnerabilities

Give glimpses of insecurities, fears, and emotional pain they conceal from the world. This emotional honesty fosters empathy and care from readers.

Plunge Into Their Perspective

Don’t just describe the protagonist from the outside – get inside their headspace immediately. Share their private thoughts, observations, reactions so readers experience events through their perspective right away.

Most crucially, use page one to make your protagonist feel like a real, complex person readers instantly relate to on a profound level. When readers care deeply for them this early, you’ve captured their engagement for the whole journey ahead.

More Ways To Write Relatable, Sympathetic Characters

Crafting multidimensional, relatable characters that draw readers in emotionally is a critical skill for fiction writers. While the opening chapter presents a prime opportunity to immediately establish a connection between readers and your protagonist, the challenge is sustaining that investment long-term.

How do you continue fleshing out sympathetic, engaging characters that readers will care about beyond just the first few pages?

The techniques below will help you build complex, human characters that readers relate to on a deeper level throughout the entirety of your story. By leveraging telling details, authentic growth arcs, and vulnerable moments, you can create characters who feel like real people readers cheer on – flaws and all.

Your protagonist may make that vital first impression in chapter one, but utilizing the following strategies will ensure readers remain invested in their journey through every subsequent chapter.

Flaws That Mirror Ours

Giving characters relatable flaws, weaknesses and shortcomings allows readers to identify with their struggles. These imperfections make characters more real and humanized. Flaws can include:

  • Self-doubt, insecurity, low self-esteem
  • Anger issues, impatience, temper
  • Habits they want to break, addictions
  • Inability to communicate their feelings
  • Trouble letting go of past hurts
  • Difficulty with change or taking risks

Readers understand these everyday flaws intimately from their own lives. Seeing characters grapple with similar inner demons forges a powerful bond.

Motivations We Can Root For

Readers sympathize with characters when their actions stem from motivations we find understandable – if not always agreeable. For example:

  • Doing unethical things to provide for family
  • Seeking retribution for past injustice or trauma
  • Fighting to protect or reunite with loved ones
  • Pursuing dreams despite disadvantages or opposition
  • Trying to do the right thing in a morally gray situation

Even flawed actions become sympathetic when driven by motivations readers relate to at a core human level.

Authentic Emotional Reactions

Characters feel familiar when they experience events and process emotions in authentic ways. Tap into readers’ own emotional frameworks by having characters react to story developments with genuine responses like:

  • Anger, hurt at betrayals by those they trusted
  • Excitement, anxiety over pursuing dreams or new relationships
  • Self-doubt when struggling with challenging tasks
  • Helplessness in the face of traumatic grief or loss
  • Confusion when faced with moral dilemmas

Layered Personalities

While relatable flaws help connect readers to characters, solely defining characters by their flaws makes them one-dimensional. Give them nuance and depth through:

  • Hobbies, passions, interests outside central story events
  • Backstories that shaped their personalities organically
  • Quirks, habits, mannerisms that humanize their behaviors
  • Textured relationships with other characters
  • Strengths, talents, skills that counterbalance their weaknesses

Well-rounded characters feel lifelike and elicit reader investment and sympathy. Readers see them as complex individuals rather than just vehicles for the plot.

Grow and Change

Static characters may be relatable at first but quickly become stale. Show characters evolving by having them:

  • Mentally process traumatic experiences from new perspectives
  • Grapple with personality flaws they exhibit, even painfully
  • Try to change behaviors and reactions, even if they sometimes slip back
  • Have realizations that fundamentally shift their worldviews
  • Learn important lessons through their story arc

Relatable yet dimensional characters that experience authentic growth and change become like friends we root for through their trials. Crafting this kind of complex character is key to hooking readers emotionally.

By infusing characters with humanizing imperfections, understandable motivations, emotional depth and the capacity to evolve, you can create fictional people readers feel they know – or maybe recognize parts of themselves in. That powerful sense of identification will make them deeply invested in accompanying these relatable characters on their story journey.

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When you get the chance, also check out: One Shot Openers and Write a Gripping First Page in Fiction.

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